http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
GLOBALIZATION is the catchword for the 21st century, but the
terrorist attack on America has revived the importance of
neighborhoods.

The terrorists who signed their own names for motel rooms, cars and
gyms were mostly free of suspicion by their neighbors even though they
were strangers in the neighborhood. Men and women who look exotic pass
without much notice. This is the way we want it to be in America.

Money -- and whether they have it -- usually determines the way we
react to foreigners. Bigotry is more likely to be aimed at those who
compete for jobs than at those who purchase our goods and services.
The fact that the hijackers traveled in first class no doubt soothed
any skepticism fellow passengers may have felt toward them.

A global economy breeds a different kind of tolerance. Men and
women who tell television interviewers they can now remember seeing
the hijackers during the weeks before the terror attacks invariably
say how sorry they are that they had no idea who these men might be.
But how could they have? Nevertheless, everyone in every neighborhood
today looks with a sharper eye at someone he doesn't know.

Apologists for the terrorists say the fault lies in their poverty,
not their religion. British playwright Harold Pinter and a group of
actors in London last week signed a letter urging the civilized world
to call off the hunt for the terrorists lest it set off World War III.
"Terrorism cannot be defeated by bombs, bullets or secret
intelligence,'' these worthies wrote. "We must make war, but on
poverty.''

A nice mushy sentiment, but if any of the terrorists had ever
belonged in the have-not classes it was a long time ago. In the weeks
and days prior to their suicide missions, they lived conspicuously
well. They knew the value of money (Osama bin Laden's fortune is worth
$300 million) and spent it lavishly, some of it on booze and naked
girls. (They weren't good Muslims.)

Tarek E. Masoud, a Muslim graduate student at Yale, describes
himself as "a man born and raised into the faith, of Arab parents and
with a deep love for the culture of the Arab.'' In spite of -- or
rather because of -- his ethnic background, he sees value in
profiling.

"How many lives would have been saved if people like me had been
inconvenienced with having our bags searched and being made to answer
questions?'' he writes in the Wall Street Journal. "People say
profiling makes them feel like criminals. It does -- I know this first
hand. But would that I had been made to feel like a criminal a
thousand times than to live to see the grisly handwork of real
criminals in New York and Washington.''

We must be careful not to put too fine a point on Masoud's
reasoning, lest someone gets the idea of requiring Arabs and Muslims
to wear a sign "I am not a terrorist.'' The Nazis did that with the
armbands for Jews.

But in a time when it's chic to be a hyphenated American, Masoud
urges that his fellow ethnics make a point of expressing pride in
being Americans first, in the way of immigrants before them. Instead
of crying out their fear of being victims, he writes, they should be
asking what they can do to help. Ask not what their new country can do
for them, someone might put it, but ask instead what they can do for
their new country.

President Bush was right to make a visit to the Islamic Center in
Washington, reminding Americans that to avenge the terror on innocent
American Arabs and Muslims would be despicable -- and un-American.
This shouldn't mean we ignore the violence encouraged through the
interpretations and distortions of the Koran that the terrorists use
to recruit killers.

"There are so many Muslims rejoicing at the tragic loss of
American lives and the humiliation of the American government that
they cannot be dismissed as 'a few extremists,''' writes Patrick
Sookhdeo in the London Daily Telegraph.

Sookhdeo, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and
Christianity, argues that the way to show respect for a religion is to
face up to the twisted interpretations that encourage violent
adherents to suicidal terror. Scholars argue whether certain
interpretations of Islamic scripture encourage violence, but the
terrorists aren't scholars, and they justify their wickedness with
citations of chapter and verse from the Koran. Prudence requires us to
be aware of it.

"To recognize that no culture or people are without fault and that
all should be subject to criticism is not racism,'' says Sookhdeo.
"It is an honesty that emphasizes our common humanity.'' But to love
thy neighbor as thyself are not, alas, the words everyone lives
by.